Bogleheads.org

I've always tilted US - no recency bias here. And I'm loving it.

Remember - INSTITUTIONS MATTER

The fanatical replies and accusations by some on this topic indicate an emotional attachment or bias more than a rational decision. I'll leave it up to you to decide. Personally, I just go with a % that I can sleep at night with and not make a hasty decision if International either under or over ret...

I'm 40 and have all of our retirement accounts in 100% stock index funds. I want to reallocate to a mix that incorporates 20-40% bond index funds. I read recently read that John Bogle has said that the Bond Market is very unnatractive right now. Should I pay attention to this? Do I go ahead and sel...

The Bible - Reading the Bible led me to a rebirth of my Christian self. Years of corruption and "dirt" were washed away and I became a servant of the Lord. It is exciting to read letters and stories from thousands of years ago that explain feelings and spiritual experiences I myself have ...

Bonds are a "terrible investment" right now http://finance.yahoo.com/video/buffett-bonds-terrible-investment-now-120200291.html I particularly liked what he says about chasing yield. He says you should make the most intelligent decision available and ignore striving for yield. In my terms,...

Awesome. I love me some Bogleheads. You guys rock. I was worried about the fund being underfunded in future years and us having the pension reduced by the employer due to this MAP-21 change. Thanks for the great information.

I recently received a notice from a past employer about changes to the pension. MAP-21 changed how the pension fund calculates its liabilities. Prior to MAP-21 pension plans determined their liabilities using a 2 year avg of interest rates. After MAP-21, now pension plans must take into account a 25...

People that tend to make a lot of money also tend to be the people that make smart choices in life. The common element here is not the money, but the ability to make smart and prudent decisions.

You will not be able to access your 401k until retirement (without penalty) in order to pay off the mortgage. Is that a concern? Also, when you take a large disbursement from the 401k to payoff the mortgage you will have to pay taxes on that large disbursement. That will most likely tax you at a hig...

Read the primary texts. Secondary works do the thinking for you, regurgitate it, and offer it up for you to digest with their own special sauce. Only by engaging with the primary texts do you work your mind and truly understand -- and have the ability to disagree or agree authentically. Secondary so...

Good move. I've pretty much done the same thing, except that I have access to Stable Value Funds in my 401ks. So therefore a significant portion of my fixed income allocation is in the SVFs.

An AP twitter feed was hacked and gave a false report about a white house bombing.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/markets-plunge-briefly-fake-ap-175129454.html

The stable value fund does not have the credit quality of a Treasury bond so they are not directly comparable. They might still make sense, but only a Treasury bond is risk free in nominal terms because only the Treasury can issue an infinite amount of debt to pay back previous debts (they can alwa...

I have a quarter of money in 30 year bonds. Jump in. The water is fine. You buying them today is no different from me already holding them. They are a great diversifier with respect to equities (or gold/commodities) and the combination of low correlation and high volatility gives you a very powerfu...

Unless you intend to sell your 30 year bonds during a major market crash what difference will holding them make? I would rebalance my assett allocation -- which would mean that I sell some of the long term bonds to buy equities to get my allocations back in balance. It would appear that the best ti...

Two Reasons 1. I'm thinking that 30 year bonds offer significant protection and diversification in a 2008-9 type event. Significant capital appreciation occurs for long term bonds during a major market crash. Sure, short term bonds and fixed income offers some ballast to your portfolio during these...

Eventually I would like to add some 30 year bonds to my portfolio, when the bond market returns to normal (Let's not get into why this isn't "normal"). Assuming the bond market gets back to normal and interest rates rise on longer duration bonds, at what % yield would it begin making sense...

So where is the GLD money going to go? Cash? Bonds? Stocks? Real Estate? Other commodities?

10:23 AM Central
Gold
1,357.90
-143.50
-9.56%

Are we seeing a stampede?

There is no normal market. Or, put another way, every market is normal. The market is a system where all components are relative to one another within that system. And the system is continually changing, and thus the components continually shift in relation to the system and the other components wi...

I think there is a third way. We all definitely need some bonds. But think broadly. Just buy ibonds, bank/credit union savings accounts yielding 0.5%-1%, credit union cds with guaranteed early withdrawal at low penalties, the "G" Fund, etc. You get better yields and mimimal interest rate ...

To see what I mean, go look at the holdings of the Vanguard limited term bond fund. You will see lots of bonds with maturity dates in the 2030s. 19% of the fund's holdings are listed as having maturities over 5 years. I assume most of those bonds with distant maturity dates are callable, as the fun...

Indeed fundamentals matter.... I think that in addition to our cherished investment philosophy, we also need a good dose of common sense and a refresher on our math skills. Gentlemen: I defer the last word to you.... I'm with the Commander on this one. We can't let ideology blind us from the facts ...

I would love to have some long duration bonds, but I am going to wait until the yield goes up. At what % yield would you all consider buying 30 yr bonds?

In the past, I have just made a couple trips to Lowes and loaded up with some bags of Scott's mulch at $5 per 2 cu ft . This probably cost me around $100-$120 total . It seems like there should be a better option. Any ideas? Limitations: I don't have a pickup truck. I do have a Honda CRV, so I guess...

1. Stable Value Fund (If available in your 401k plan)
2. I-bonds (for your non-retirement account)
3. Pay more down on your mortgage
4. CDs
5. Short term treasury bond funds

Another advantage of i-bonds for a young investor (at least some of them) is that they can effectively serve as both a (safe, tax-deferred) investment and an emergency fund. For people starting out that can be very useful. +1 I hate sitting on only cash for my emergency fund. I-bonds make up a nice...

(But don't we need a reference frame of some sort, not fiat currency?) No. We don't. This way of thinking is typical of a "modernist" worldview. Atomism is also a similar way of thinking. Modernism, for example, simply must have a solid particle that we can ultimately refer to. Except the...

Enjoy!

http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Stable_Value_Fund

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked

A wise analysis.

I too would like to get more REITS in my allocation, but I am not willing to risk the current high valuation. If we have a market crash or correction, I am going to buy up to a 5% REIT allocation for my portfolio. And if that never happens, it doesn't bother me if my REIT allocation remains at 2%.

Top Results as of end of work day 1/22/13

"Bond Flu" - 4
"Sword of Damocles" - 3
"The Great Historic Bond Anti-Climax" - 3

and for the Beavis and Butthead fans out there,

[Inappropriate language for poll option removed by admin LadyGeek]

As discussed and promised on yesterday's thread, here is a poll. You never know, you might start hearing this on Mad Money!

[Poll containing inappropriate language removed by admin LadyGeek]

Absolutely not. Read my statement again. Up until the semicolon it is not forward looking. or 2) no capital gain with higher nominal income. Up until the semicolon etc. Hmm...did you not write what was after the semi-colon? Was that part meaningless? The "post semicolon" part implies that...

Hi MrMatt, Finally, I have to disagree with you that home equity should ONLY be accounted if you are definitely going to sell it. It's the same as saying that your investments should ONLY be accounted to the extent you are going to use them in your lifetime and any unsold ones are irrelevant to cal...

Sometimes it is frustrating to see a family member make a big financial mistake. It feels like watching someone stand in front of a very, very slow moving train and yet refuse to move. Reminds me of that scene in Austin Powers where the guy gets run over by the steamroller. :) Noooooooooooooooooooo...

Perhaps we're barking up the wrong tree. We might want to hitch our wagon to a simile instead. For example: Bonds are like an asset which today returns less nominal income than has ordinarily been observed, while instantiations already issued have substituted capital gains for that income; and for ...

FYI - Tomorrow I will setup a poll for voting based on many of the responses here. Should be fun.

When I was young, I assumed I would never pay someone to chnage my oil. It was so easy, and cheap to do it myself. The last time I went to change the oil, the filter+oil was more expensive that what I could get changed at an oil change place when on sale. I threw in the towel. I'm not going to pay ...

Well, I'll confess to shortening my maturities and reducing my allocation. You "contest" doesn't allow for the latter, which is an obvious response to an overvalued assets class. Your time frame of one year is way too short. I believe as follows (JMHO): Bonds are priced to give subpar ret...

There has been much discussion around the historic high demand and price of bonds. The term I keep seeing thrown around is "bubble." Then others retort that bonds don't "pop" like that, and so we shouldn't be that worried. ... If bonds don't pop like that, how do they pop (or do...

555 wrote:Molehill.

LOL! Awesome.

Metaphors distract. People end up arguing the "aptness" of the metaphor more than discussing the actual issue itself. How about we drop the metaphors and just discuss bond pricing and the bond market - if there is really anything left to say about it? Because sometimes you need to use two...

dbr wrote:A healthy thing is to not express emotions as metaphors, so the best suggestion is to not call whatever it is anything at all.

Language and thus thinking require metaphor. I guess that we could just enter a Zen like meditative state and avoid the whole problem of thought.

So roughly a hair over $2 a quart. At Advance Auto Parts that would have gotten you near the same price but would include the filter. http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/content_motor-oil___ What I usually do is keep a oil change on hand for both cars and shop for another onc...

There has been much discussion around the historic high demand and price of bonds. The term I keep seeing thrown around is "bubble." Then others retort that bonds don't "pop" like that, and so we shouldn't be that worried. Another word used is "crisis," but to me that i...

You mention this, but I think it should be part of your expanded allocation -- equity on the mortgaged home. The equity in your home is not a consumption item. It is an asset. If I decide to take $50,000 and pay down principal, I don't want that $50k vanishing in my portfolio. I have to account for ...

Another option is to do a "backdoor" Roth IRA conversion. To do this, you contribute to a Traditional IRA (non-deductible at your income level), and then immediately convert that to a Roth IRA. It's easy and painless to do once you have your accounts setup at Vanguard or another brokerage....